


Reaper's Promise

by CombineGLaDOS



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Happy Ending, Implied Attempted Suicide, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Murder, Promises, Redemption, Rescue, friends helping friends, i promise this is happy in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 11:25:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11035218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CombineGLaDOS/pseuds/CombineGLaDOS
Summary: The first time Gabriel Reyes met Amélie Lacroix, he made a promise to Gérard that he would look after her while she was at the Overwatch Headquarters.The promise was only to be kept for a few hours, but instead, it was kept for a decade.





	Reaper's Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Number one: I've hardly edited the rewrite so I'll edit it eventually but I just wanted to get this out there.  
> Number two: There is a reference to attempted suicide but it's very minor and easy to miss unless you've read Last Chance, Last Escape.  
> Number three: I tried really hard with the translations but if they're wrong and you're a native speaker of said language, please let me know the correct translation.  
> Number four: I disregard canon a little but only a few minor things.
> 
> Oh, and there's no real ships in this (except Widow and Gerard and at the end with other people), so the relationship tags are mainly friendships.
> 
> Aside from that, I haven't properly written anything in years so please be gentle and enjoy

On a normal day, the Overwatch headquarters in Zurich were bustling with activity, what with all the issues the organisation was having with Talon, the Deadlock gang and several omnic extremist cells. Missions were being run non-stop, and with that came members of Overwatch running down corridors and towards the armoury and hangar bay, with the commanders and captains dashing from comm room to comm room in an attempt to keep up communications with missions that were already underway.

But today was not a normal day. The aforementioned groups were being unusually quiet for the time being, and while the members of Overwatch _could_ be searching for any hint of activity and doing something to prevent it, the current state of affairs gave ample time for all those postponed meetings to take place; all the training that had been put off to finally go ahead and time for that long awaited Overwatch v Blackwatch basketball match to happen (Blackwatch had won, and Jack accused the black ops group of cheating because they were younger than his team).

Currently, Gabriel Reyes loitered in one of the deserted corridors, scanning through the information on the datapad in his hand. He had no meetings that day, but as a higher up in Overwatch, he was more or less required to stay on the base during the day while a lot of the lower down recruits were allowed to stay at home -on call, of course.

He was almost considering actually finding something useful to do when he heard the sound of boots pounding the floor around a corner, the sound growing louder until the wearer made a terrible squeaking noise as they ground to a halt next to the Blackwatch member.

“Reyes! I’m glad I found you!” Gabriel glanced down at the man who had almost gone face first into the wall he was leaning against. Gérard Lacroix, a member of Overwatch and the man being looked at to spearhead the operation against Talon.

Gabriel had met him about a year ago, and prior to then, he’d been impressed by what he’d heard of the man. He was an accomplished soldier, despite his young age, and remarkably intelligent for someone who had allegedly flunked school to the point he only just got into the French military. That isn’t to say he wasn’t impressed by him now. He was very strategically minded, which was no doubt the reason Overwatch ended up with him. It was just that, there were many things about the man that Gabriel hadn’t expected.

First of all, there was the height. There were many men in Overwatch who were below the average height, but not quite as small as the French man, who was the grand height of 5 foot four. He was also deceptively small for how strong he was, muscles wise. Finally, he also seemed to have the bizarre ability to talk for France, which was something that very quickly downgraded Gabriel’s opinion of him from ‘brilliant’ to ‘tolerable’.

Gabriel considered Gérard for a moment, debating whether he had the energy to have his ear talked off or not, before he finally caved and asked, “and why is that?”

“Well, remember how I’m getting married?” _because you give me a chance to forget_. “Well, I asked Amélie if she wanted to visit the base and meet the people I work with. Morrison cleared it and she was meant to be getting here at 6, except her flight was early and she’s on her way now.”

Reyes glanced at the time on his datapad. It was 2 PM. “So she’s going to be here early. That’s…terrible?”

Gérard rolled his eyes before closing them and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oui, it is. I’m in meetings until 5:30. That’s why I was wondering if you could look after her until I’m finished?”

It took a few seconds for Reyes to determine whether Gérard was being serious or not. Amélie was apparently only slightly younger that her fiancé, so why a 23-year-old woman would need to be babysat was beyond his comprehension. “I’m sure she’s more than capable of looking after herself, Gérard. She doesn’t need a baby sit-“

“S’il vous plait!” He almost begged, grabbing the much taller man’s arm when he turned to leave and busy himself elsewhere. “I would normally agree, but Amé said she’s worried about being here by herself -that she might find it overwhelming- and I said I’d get someone to keep her company and show her around while she waits for me and everyone else is busy.”

 _Well, I guess I can’t say no now._ Gabriel tucked his datapad under his arm and sighed. “Fine, I’ll stay with her until 5:30 and not a minute later.”

Gérard’s shoulders finally relaxed and the crease that had been making itself at home on his brow began to even out. “Merci. She’ll be at the main entrance in 15 minutes. Please be waiting for her and promise me you’ll look after her?”

Gabriel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I will be there, and I promise.”

Gérard thanked Gabriel again and no sooner had the words left his mouth was he dashing down the corridor, screeching to a halt at the end before sprinting off in the direction of the conference rooms, clearly late a meeting, leaving Gabriel to do nothing but sigh as he resigned himself to the fact he was going to be a glorified tour guide for the next 3 and a half hours of his life.

 

* * *

 

 

It was fairly cold in Zurich, and Gabriel couldn’t help the urge to bury the lower half of his face in his hoodie while he dug his hands into his pockets. Given how cold it felt in October, he already knew that he wasn’t going to like any of the next three months.

He was beginning to wonder whether he should visit Angela later for frostbite when a car pulled up outside the headquarters; a tall, lithe woman stepping out and pulling down the sleeves of her coat to cover her hands.

The woman glanced around uneasily for a second before her golden eyes settled on Reyes. She strode over to him with a confidence that wasn’t present when she first exited the car, and politely bowed her head before she spoke. “Bonjour. Est-ce que tu es Gabriel?”

There was no mistaking that this must have been Amélie and Gabriel went to respond before he realised he had no idea what she’d actually said. He understood ‘bonjour’ and his name, but the words in the middle meant nothing to him, so he simply used his initiative. “Bonjour…Oui?”

For a brief moment, Amélie looked perplexed before she smiled and nodded her head at the conclusion of the thoughts she’d just had. “Parlez-vous français?”

Now _that_ was a question that Gabriel understood, if only because it was one of the first thing Gérard had asked him. “No, sorry.”

He was expected the French woman to sigh, roll her eyes and/or show some other sign of frustration, but instead she smiled that same understanding smile she had done seconds earlier and said, “It is okay. I prefer to speak French, but I know enough English to talk in it.” Her accent was almost as thick as her fiancé’s. “I’m Amélie Dufort. Gérard told me you’d be waiting by the entrance.”

Gabriel returned the smile this time, and quickly made a mental note to speak to a certain someone later about making plans involving a person without first asking their permission. He nodded his head towards the main entrance for the Overwatch Headquarters, “So I guess you want a tour?”

The French woman, who Gabriel had decided was far more attractive than the pictures her fiancée insisted on showing everyone made her look, smiled and gestured for him to lead the way.

She stayed close for the tour, listening intently to Gabriel as he told her about the going’s on at the base and also introduced her to the various Overwatch members they walked by, the tour coming to a brief halt while they spoke to Ana and Angela, with the former ensuring that she fully expressed how happy she was to have Amélie as part of the family.

Of course, the woman herself didn’t stay quiet for the entire tour, and spent a good half an hour talking about her career as a ballet dancer, filling Gabriel in about all the shows she had been in and how she was currently working her ass off to get the part of Odile/Odette in Swan Lake. In fact, once she started talking about her dancing, it seemed like she wouldn’t stop, at points talking so fast and enthusiastically that she ended up inserting random French words into the sentence or just forgoing English altogether for a couple of sentences.

As enlightening as it was, Gabriel couldn’t help but remember about how Gérard was similar in how he would speak about his interests and found himself thinking _Oh my god, there’s two of them._

All things considered, Gabriel found himself quite enjoying their time together, and when it came time to hand her over to Gérard, he couldn’t have been happier at the prospect of Amélie becoming part of the Overwatch family.

 

 

* * *

 

Stress levels were running higher than ever at Overwatch. Around a year ago, the youngest member of their experimental flight program’s plane went missing, with the young pilot inside it. It wouldn’t be a problem, except the plane was supposed to be able to shift through time, so no one knew where -and when- it and the pilot were for months, until Lena Oxton appeared one day at the Gibraltar Watchpoint, her body fading and voice crackling as if she was a poorly received holo-signal.

It had taken weeks for Winston to finally create the chronal accelerator so Lena could finally have her life back, and Gabriel couldn’t help but feel for her. Being thrown through time must have been a fate worse than death and he hoped he never had to go through something similar thanks to the organisations occasional bouts of incompetence.

Just as they had solved the issue of Lena’s chronal disassociation, they were presented with a new, bigger problem.

Gabriel was working on a stack of paper work bigger than him when Gérard burst into the room, his face wet with tears and features contorted with extreme panic. Before the Blackwatch commander could even begin to ask the other man what had happened, he said something Gabriel hoped he never had to hear.

“Talon took Amélie!” As soon as the words left Gérard’s lips, he collapsed on the floor and broke down, muttering to himself in French.

The next month was spent looking for the woman, and finally, after exhausting almost every single available resource, and more than a few beratements from Jack, they found her alive. Bruised and traumatised, but alive.

She was immediately given over to Angela, who forwent sleep and food so she could every test she could on Amélie, desperate to find out what Talon did to her and even more so to reverse it. In fact, her desperation to help her lead her to shift into full doctor mode, enforcing strict rules around the patient, including limiting visiting hours to the actual printed visiting hours, rather than the loose ones she normally allowed, and she didn’t dance around it either, Gabriel walking by the infirmary one day when he found Lena -who had become Amélie’s best friend since they met a few months prior- being all but shoved from the room by a rather exhausted looking Dr. Ziegler.

The tests came back after a few days, and to say everyone was shocked would’ve been a huge understatement. There was _nothing_ wrong with her.

Gérard immediately jumped up, seemingly being the only person truly relieved by that result. He went straight to the subject of when Amélie could come home, and then all hell broke loose between him and Dr. Ziegler when she told him that she wasn’t releasing the woman for a few more weeks yet, as she wanted to be absolutely sure that she was okay.

Gabriel watched as the French man and swiss woman tore into each other, the argument seeming rather civil, if loud until Gérard exclaimed, “caisse-toi!”

Now, Gabriel’s French had improved somewhat over the past few years, but he was still far from fluent. From the way the words were spat and the mixed look of fury and offense on Angela’s face, he was certain that it wasn’t friendly.

“Excuse me?” Angela’s normally pale face was redder than anyone had ever seen it, and her voice was low, almost a whisper. “I’m trying to save your wife, and all you can say when I ask for more time is ‘Fuck you’? I sho-“

“That’s enough.” Jack’s voice boomed from the other end of the meeting room, immediately bringing the argument to a stop. “Lacroix, I know you want Amélie home. We all do, but we need to ensure that Talon didn’t do anything, and the tests might not show everything. Ziegler, you need to do what you think is best, but be mindful this is Gérard’s wife. Both of you, stop arguing, for Amélie’s sake.” He lowered the volume of his voice towards the end, and once Angela and Gérard calmed down, he dismissed the meeting.

 

Hours later, Gabriel stopped by the infirmary, having been thinking over what was said at the meeting, finding Angela closing up for the night. She didn’t even look at him as she spoke, “I already apologised to Gérard, if that’s why you’ve come by. We both agreed that the stress was getting to us and that we acted unprofessionally. We’re fine now.”

She sounded tired, which would either make what Gabriel was planning to do easier or a million times harder. He took a deep breath, resting his shoulder on the wall and made sure he had the doctor’s full attention before he spoke. “I think you should let Amélie go home.”

Gabriel watched as the emotions flooded Angela’s face for a brief second, before she went to being completely unreadable. “Like I said earlier, I want to keep her here for a few weeks to be absolutely sure she’s okay. Unless you have one hell of a good reason for me to release her, I’m not going to.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose to fight off an oncoming headache, Gabriel pushed the point further. “She was kidnapped and held against her will by Talon, and now we’re keeping her here, locked in a medbay because you have to be absolutely sure you weren’t wrong? It’s almost like you doubt your own abilities and technology.”

When he had planned the conversation out earlier, he hoped that the doctor’s exhaustion would make her susceptible to the underhand tactics he was going to employ. Unfortunately, the lack of sleep and real food had quite the opposite effect.

“I do trust my abilities and technology, Reyes. I don’t however, trust Talon to have taken her, kept her for a month and then let her go without doing anything. She’s distant, she hardly talks to anyone except Gérard, it takes me 20 minutes of asking for her to finally listen enough to what I’m saying so I can get her to consent to an exam.” All the prior exhaustion that Angela had appeared to be leaving as she spoke animatedly and hardly attempted to hold back her frustration. She was keeping her voice down though, which Gabriel assumed had something to do with the fact Amélie was literally in the next room.

“Maybe she’s distant because she’s traumatised? And if she’s talking to Gérard almost like normal, isn’t that all the more reason to let her go home with him?” Gabriel watched as the doctor glanced off to the side, looking the medbay doors but undoubtedly thinking of the person beyond them. He took that moment to deliver the final blow. “Gérard is more than capable of looking after her. If something is wrong, he’ll send her back here. Keeping her locked up in there is probably only adding to the trauma and having you trying to run tests on her 24/7 probably isn’t helping her situation much.”

Gabriel met Angela’s piercing blue eyes as she glared at him, before she threw up her hands in defeat. “Fine, I’ll release her in two days, but no sooner.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she turned on her heel, responding the Gabriel’s thank you with a purposefully just loud enough to be heard “Bitte, arschloch.”.

Two days later, true to her word, Angela released Amélie to go home with Gérard.

Two weeks later, Gérard was found in bed, his upper body a mangled mess of flesh and blood, a broken knife crudely jammed into his neck. Amélie was nowhere to be seen, and it was assumed she had been taken by Talon.

Within the year, Overwatch was shutdown. Amélie Lacroix’s disappearance one of the many reasons, alongside Overwatch interference in London when it wasn’t wanted. The final nail in the coffin came when the Zurich base was reduced to a smouldering pile of ruins, with both Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison being declared dead in the explosion.

Except neither of them died, and Reyes deflected to Talon, using them to get back at former Overwatch agents.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Reaper had been with Talon for the better part of a year when he finally saw her again, and he very quickly realised that this woman wasn’t the same one he had met 5 years ago.

Amélie was warm, full of life and one of the most kind-hearted people he had ever met. Widowmaker, as she was now known, was a cold, calculating and ruthless killer, who seemingly cared for nothing.

As she walked by, she regarded him for a moment, but she showed no signs of recognising him which, given that he was wearing a mask and outfit that fitted his new moniker, he couldn’t really blame her.

While she observed him, Reaper observed her back. Her skin was now a bluish purple, her shoulder length black hair was now purple and running half way down her back, and her brown eyes were now a striking gold. She was also wearing a catsuit that Reaper knew Amélie would never wear. She was also sporting a bandage around her right forearm, no doubt something to do with whatever talon had done to her.

The brief meeting ended when she turned and continued down the corridor towards the hanger bay.

It was bordering on six months before Reaper ran into her again.

Today, he wasn’t wearing his mask. His features were scarred, skeletal and grey, his face so twisted from what it used to be that unless someone knew him well in his former life, they wouldn’t recognise him. He found that this appearance was more than enough to stop the many Talon lackey’s from trying to converse with him (minus the irritating Mexican one that seemed intent on seeing whether she could still give him an aneurysm despite the fact he was technically dead). He also hoped that it would be enough to get Widowmaker to realise who he is and see if there was any Amélie left within her.

After picking up his tray of ‘food’, he walked over to the table where Widowmaker was sitting in the canteen, taking the seat across from her. “Hi.”

“Salut.” She barely glanced up from her food tray, busying herself with playing with the food. When Reaper first walked in, he had seen her eat a couple of bites, but now she looked like a child who was full but wasn’t allowed to leave the table until they finished the meal.

Reaper felt a brief panic come over him. The glance from her held almost the same indifference as it did a month’s prior. She didn’t recognise him. The man who gave her the tour of the swiss headquarters, who went to her wedding, who went to see her perform in Swan Lake, was just another face in the crowd to her now.

“Is there a reason why you’re trying to make conversation?” Widowmaker spoke as she continued to turn her meal into mush while she grabbed her cup of water in her other hand and drank from it.

Reaper didn’t get a chance to respond when his ‘favourite’ hacker slid onto the bench next to the French woman, pressing right up against her before shifting a couple of inches away from her and stuffing her face with the slop they had been given.

“Hey Reaper. Trying to make a girlfriend?” Sombra asked while chewing the food she had managed to stuff in her mouth. “Because if you are, you’re about to be very disappointed. Isn’t that right, araña?”

“Sombra.” Both Reaper and Widowmaker growled in unison, glancing at each other briefly before returning to glare at the younger woman.

Sombra seemed unfazed as she piled more food onto her fork, but thankfully didn’t shove it in before she started talking. “What? I’m just saying that she doesn’t feel anything, and even if she did, you’re not her type, and not just because you’re a walking vape cloud.”

Reaper growled, yet couldn’t help but doubt whether the part about not feeling anything was true. A person who couldn’t feel anything surely couldn’t knit their brow in frustration, and certainly wouldn’t stand up with enough force to almost send the table flying before going to throw their food tray into the trash with such strength it’s astounding that it didn’t end up embedded in the wall.

Sombra rolled her eyes before she busied herself eating her meal, helping herself to Reaper’s leftovers when he stalked off back to his quarters.

 

Once again, time passed before Reaper ran into his old friend again, although this time it was only a matter of weeks rather than months. (He wasn’t surprised he went this long without seeing her. The ex-military base Talon had commandeered was large enough to not see the same person twice for weeks or months).

That morning, Reaper had been told that one of Talon’s agents failed a mission, and had been sat in lockup for the past 48 hours. His job was to determine how they failed the mission, then advise on a fitting punishment for them, whether that be another 24 hours in lockup or a beating or even murder.

Reaper didn’t know what to expected to see when he made it to the crumbling holding cell, but it certainly wasn’t Widowmaker sat in the corner, eyes watching her left hand move up and down her freshly tattooed right forearm.

He let the door close behind him, holding his hand out so that it didn’t close to sharply and startle the woman in the corner who still had yet to acknowledge his presence. Instead, he got her attention by clearing his throat, running through the procedure in his head as she rose from her seated position on the ground. _Ask her what she was to do, ask what went wrong, tell her it wouldn’t be tolerated and decide on punishment. Easy._

At least, it would’ve been if he wasn’t acutely aware of the lack of surveillance in the room and the fact that now was perhaps the only time he could ask her all the questions that had been eating away at him for the past few months. Unfortunately, he didn’t get a choice as to whether he was going to ask her the mission related questions or his personal ones.

“My mission was to assassinate Tracer. Former member of Overwatch. I missed the shot.” She sounded disgusted as the said the last sentence.

The undead wraith now knew that he had to continue with the mission based line of questioning. If he was lucky, he would have an opportunity to ask the personal questions at a later date. “Why did you miss?”

She hesitated before she answered. Reaper noticed what couldn’t been a brief flash of emotion on her face, but it was gone before he could begin to identify it. “I missed the shot because she went in an alley. It was dark, I couldn’t see her. I took a shot, but she wasn’t there, and it missed.”

“Bullshit.” The accusation was harsh. Talon kept many a secret on how they had created Widowmaker, but one thing that Reaper uncovered was that this, this _creature_ before him couldn’t miss a shot. Even if it was dark, he knew her goggles had infrared sight. She would’ve been able to activate them and see exactly where Tracer was, so there was no logical way she would’ve missed. “Tell me what happened exactly.”.

“I already did. It was dark, I couldn’t see her and I missed the shot.”

 _There it is! Or isn’t, rather,_ Reaper noted. In her first explanation, she mentioned Tracer going into an alley, and that was why it was dark and she couldn’t see her. When he called her bullshit, and asked for what happened exactly, she never mentioned the alley. Of course, he could be making a mountain out of a molehill, but when he thought back to his meetings with Amélie, he knew she would always give the specific details of a story, no matter how many times she told it. When she was cast as Odette and Odile, she would talk about how many feathers her costume demanded and how many layers her tutu had. They were small details, but she never omitted them, and while Widowmaker may not be Amélie, the fundamentals were the same. She omitted the alley on purpose, and Reaper was sure of it.

“Does Tracer mean something to you?”

Again, there was hesitation before she spoke a quiet and uncertain “No.”

“So you have never heard of, or had any type of contact with her in your life, before this mission?”

She hesitated for a third time, chewing her lip for a second before she surged forward and asked a few questions of her own. “What are you implying? What possible reason do you have for asking that? Just do the normal questions, determine that I fucked up, decide a punishment and go.” She punctuated her last word with the strongest shove she could muster, the force just enough for him to have to step back to balance himself.

A moment of silence passed before Reaper saw undeniable emotion flood the assassins face; her eyes wide, mouth slightly agape as she stared at her own hands for a moment before looking up at Reaper. “Please, do not tell _anyone_ of this. Do whatever you feel is necessary but do not that that display, or this current one leave this room.”

He was quiet for a moment before he nodded. He ordered her to sit the next 24 hours out in lockup and then return to her normal duties before he left.

That evening, Reaper thought back on what had happened. Widowmaker had shown emotion, something she should have been incapable of, and when she was being questioned over failing to assassinate Tracer, no less.

Before everything, Lena and Amélie had been friends. Best friends, in fact. Never in a million years would Amélie have hurt her, and it appeared that the same was true for Widowmaker.

Perhaps Talon weren’t as good as conditioning the person out of someone as they thought.

 

* * *

 

 

Over the years, Reaper had learned an awful lot about Widowmaker.

She held no remorse for the lives she took. She was stealthy to a fault, despite what Talon decided to put her in and, more importantly, she was not the perfect weapon that the organisation loved to brag about.

It was true that she didn’t feel anything, most of the time. Before she was taken to ‘maintenance’, she would let little hints of emotion slip. She’d tear up if she caught her hip on a table; she’d jolt when Sombra felt the need to jump on her from behind to scare her; she’d wring her hands together on the way to a mission and bounce her knee while waiting for Sombra to return, and Reaper had heard she did the same with him too.

She also wasn’t the truly remorseless killer that people thought she was either. She’d happily take the lives of peacekeepers, politicians and CEO’s, but never would she take the life of a civilian if she could truly avoid it. She also appeared incapable of killing former Overwatch members, either missing the shot entirely or wounding them enough for it to be serious but not fatal, as long as they received medical attention within an hour or so.

Reaper had noticed all these things over the years, but he had also noticed that these…displays of being human were becoming fewer and farther in-between. At first, it was just short of two months when the woman that Widowmaker used to be would break through, and back then, she would never harm a former Overwatch agent, but now, it was closer to 9 months before the tiniest shred of emotion would appear, and shots that maimed were made more frequently than shots that missed.

It had been the best part of a decade, and Amélie was finally beginning to lose to Talon’s reconditiong, and Reaper knew it, except he wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Sombra, though insufferable at times, had expressed her concern over Widowmaker when he caught her looking at classified files on Talon’s database. Even though she had never met Amélie, she had noticed the little glimpses she got of the woman fading away into nothingness, being replaced wholly by Widowmaker.

Thankfully, all was not lost for the poor woman who was suffering inside the creature Talon had forged. Currently, Reaper watched Sombra copy and encrypt a selection of videos and medical records that had been created 10 years earlier when Talon first began to suppress Amélie to make way for their horror.

Their plan was simple in theory, but would undoubtedly be more complicated in execution. It involved getting the encrypted files onto an Overwatch server where someone would hopefully find them and decrypt them. Whoever decrypted them would hopefully show the members of the newly reformed organisation, which would give them the incentive to capture her rather than kill her if they had the chance.

It was a massive risk though, and Reaper was aware of it. If Sombra got caught, the nicest thing she could hope to happen to her would be to be beaten to death. Hell, Talon would probably have Widowmaker do it for the sick irony of it. Furthermore, if Sombra got caught, Reaper knew he would be to. There’d be no telling what they’d do to him, mostly because they couldn’t kill him, but he was sure that whatever they did, he’d rather not experience it.

Of course, this was all just phase one of the plan. Phase two involved actually trying to screw up a mission so that it would be easy for Overwatch to capture Widowmaker, which would then lead on to phase three, which was the part that Reaper was most looking forward to. Phase three entailed Sombra leaking as much to Overwatch as she could while Reaper went around and destroyed Talon from within, hopefully creating a big enough distraction to ensure that Sombra wouldn’t be caught.

“Okay, files are encrypted and transferred.” Sombra rolled back in her chair and stretched her arms and back, letting out a satisfied sound as her joints popped and cracked. “Overwatch should find the files within a day or two. I hid them in plain sight. Next time the doctor logs in, they’ll be right over her girlfriend’s face.”.

Reaper nodded and checked the screen, examining the files that had been sent- The surveillance from when they initially tortured her into a sleeper agent; files from when they started slowing her heart; the punishment she got for committing a messy kill that could’ve implemented Talon in Gérard’s death ( _Because it wasn’t even remotely obvious)._ He couldn’t help but feel as though sending the files to Ziegler had been the best decision. Anyone else would probably look and think ‘oh well, killing her would be a mercy’, but if there was one thing Reaper knew about Angela, it was that she loved a challenge, and what better challenge than undoing the shitstorm the organisation he worked for created?

“Good, we have three days until we’re in Cairo. Plan is to drawn attention to myself and lead Overwatch over the where Widowmaker will be. Hopefully, there’ll be enough of them to subdue her before she can escape.” He paused for a moment. “If I see Angela or Fareeha, I’ll try to get their attention over anyone else’s.”.

Sombra turned to face him, tilting her head in confusion. “Okay, I understand Mercy -She’s the one who’ll see the files, but why Pharah? Won’t she just fire a rocket at her the moment she sees her?”

Reaper shook his head. “Wherever Pharah goes, her girlfriend follows. Besides, you said earlier that the only other people likely to be there are Oxton and McCree. McCree would probably kill her on sight, and I’ve seen Oxton fight our friend before. If she goes after her, we may as well escort Widowmaker back to reconditioning ourselves.”

The younger woman rested her hand against her chin for a moment, looking towards her keyboard before she hummed in agreement. They may have gotten their plan down, but there was a lot of kinks that needed to be worked out, and they only had three days to do it.

 

* * *

 

Back when Reaper was still Gabriel Reyes and with Overwatch, he hated missions in Egypt. He’d rather they just send Ana so that he could stay back in Zurich or America, where it wasn’t hot enough to make him want to melt into a puddle. Now that he was in Talon, he still didn’t like going to the country.

He looked at his two companions for the mission. Sombra sat stretched out and had a slight sheen of sweat on her face, but otherwise appeared indifferent to the heat of the country; Widowmaker, however, was trying to spread out as much as possible across three seats, repeatedly wiping her forehead in disgust and almost gaining some colour to her cheeks.

Today was the day of the mission where, if everything went correctly, WIdowmaker would be captured by Overwatch. They knew who would be here, and they knew what was at stake. Thankfully, Overwatch were simply running a survey mission in an abandoned area near the Temple of Anubis, so there wouldn’t be much interference.

The dropship arrived less than 5 minutes later, and they took up their positions. Widowmaker set up in a building across the plaza, where the Overwatch agents were due to arrive any minute now. Sombra was setting up her own little diversion closer to their drop site, hoping that it would be enough to draw Tracer and McCree away, which would leave Reaper to get Mercy and Pharah’s attention. He deliberately stayed close to the plaza and Widowmaker.

As long as no one spooked her, she was as good as captured.

It wasn’t long before Reaper could hear the tell-tale sound of a revolver being fired a few streets away, accompanied by a faint whooshing sound that signified someone jumping through their own timeline. He could hear the noise getting fainter as the distance between them and him grew, indicating that they were more than likely pursuing Sombra currently. _As long as she keeps their attention, this should work._

Reaper didn’t have long to dwell on his thoughts though, as he heard the sound of jump jets, followed by a hissing noise that he knew all too well. Pharah and Mercy were on their way, and he ran through his plan in his head. _Get their attention, run towards the building Widowmaker is in and shadow step to her floor._

He saw the raptora suit above him and aimed his hellfire shotguns to the sky and at Pharah, firing a shot that he knew would be ineffective in every aspect except for getting their attention. The woman herself retaliated by quickly snapping her aim down and firing a rocket directly next to him, not quite managing to find her target.

He was beginning to run towards the building when the one aspect of the plan that he and Sombra hadn’t considered made itself apparent – a resounding crack rang through the air as Widowmaker fired a shot at the flying duo. It ultimately missed them both, but it clipped Mercy’s staff and sent it falling to the ground below.

With Mercy no longer having a way to heal herself or Pharah, Reaper was reluctant to fire. Yes, shotguns are mostly ineffective at long range, if a single pellet hit one of them, it could do a lot of damage, but alas, he had no choice. He needed to draw their fire and make it to Widowmaker sooner rather than later.

He walked backwards as quickly as he could, wincing every time he fired a shot. He focused his fire on Pharah, knowing she was more likely to take Widowmaker out with her rocket launcher than Mercy was with her blaster.

His back hit the wall and rapidly switched the wraith form to cover himself from fire as he moved forward so he could shadow step to the third floor and into the room where Widowmaker had set up, trying to block out the crack of her sniper rifle as she missed multiple shots.

When he arrived in the room she was in, her face was the perfect picture of horror. “Reaper! What are you doing?” She hissed, hands shakily messing with the selector on Widow’s kiss, trying to get it into assault mode. “They’re going to get in-“

She never had the chance to finish her sentence, or set her rifle to assault, when the Egyptian and Swiss woman ducked inside the window at the other end of the room, the former throwing her launcher aside and charging towards the sniper as soon as she saw her.

Pharah’s armoured fist collided with her face and she fell to the ground, throwing her arms up in an attempt to block any successive punches as Pharah laid into her.

Mercy stood behind them and fired at Reaper, who took this as his que to leave, turning into his wraith form and slipping out below the door. He stayed against the wall for a second and listened to the rest of the altercation.

There was grunting and pained groans, which were coming from Pharah and Widowmaker, respectively if the tone of the voices were anything to go by. It couldn’t have continued for more than a few seconds when he heard Pharah protesting and demanding that she be let go off, Mercy undoubtedly having grabbed her and pulled her off the other woman.

“Fareeha, stop! You saw the files! We have to take her back with us.” Mercy sounded desperate and breathless, no doubt because she was trying to restrain a woman who weighed twice what she did. “She’s already unconscious, just stop!”

Reaper heard the sounds of struggling stop, and that was good enough for him. He returned to his wraith form and vacated the building, making his way towards the rendezvous point before he tried to contact Sombra.

“They got her. I’m at the rendezvous, we have to go.”

There was pause before Sombra answered, coughing and panting as she spoke, “¡Gracias a Dios! The other two just gave up chasing me and rounded back to the plaza.”

Reaper hadn’t seen McCree or Tracer, so he assumed that they had gone back the way they came, rather than take the back route which would take them by him and Sombra’s rendezvous point. Sombra arrived just before the dropship did, and they both sat in silence on their way back to headquarters. Once they returned, they’d plan on how to take down Talon once and for all.

 

* * *

 

It had been 5 years.

5 years since Talon fell. 5 years since Overwatch got itself back into the public favour. 5 years since Reaper helped Widowmaker get rescued.

During those years, Reaper travelled the world, taking out any remaining Talon cells that tried to revive the organisation, as well as take out any other terrorist organisations that were convinced they could fill the hole left by the same people Reaper once worked for.

He still didn’t like Overwatch, but he figured whatever bad blood he had with them was nothing compared to how he felt about the Talon bastards that had somehow evaded arrest. Besides, when it came to the former Overwatch members, he just wanted to hurt them, destroy their spirits but not kill them if he was once close to them; when it came to former Talon members, there was nothing more satisfying than blowing the brains out of those who destroyed his friends.

He’d stayed friends with Sombra. Not long after Talon fell, she made herself known to Overwatch and made no secret that she’d been helping Talon for years. Of course, she wasn’t stupid and knew she would be arrested on sight, so she traded every single Talon file she had in exchange for full immunity. She even helped Overwatch out on occasion now, but ultimately still remained an agent unto herself.

Reaper himself was still wanted, but on the rare occasions that someone from Overwatch saw him, they looked the other way and allowed him to carry on his way.

In fact, the only friend Reaper hadn’t seen at all over the past five years was Amélie.

Until now.

Of all the risks he had taken in his life, this was probably one of the biggest. Widowmaker didn’t know who he was, and once he realised she definitely didn’t know, he tried to avoid having her find out, in case it snapped her out of her reconditioning and made the situation even worse for her than it already was. Given his appearance and the extent of the reconditioning, it was safe to assume that Amélie wouldn’t know who he is either.

It was late, and he had asked her to meet him outside a small café in London. It was mid-September, so still warm out but cool enough that he could get away with wearing a jacket with the hood up. He didn’t want to draw any undue attention to himself, after all.

A group of three women walked down the street towards him, keeping his head down so they couldn’t get a good look at him. This came with the downside that he couldn’t see them either, but he managed to get a glimpse at the arm of one of them, and noticed a familiar tattoo.

Two of the women walked straight passed him and into the café, while the third, the one with the tattoo, sat across from him.

“Bonjour.” Her voice was close to whisper, and bleeding with nerves.

“Hello, Amélie.” Reaper spoke, slowly lifting his head so he could make eye contact with her and give her a good look. She was no longer blue, but significantly paler than she was before everything. Her purple hair was back to black, and while it was still tied into a pony tail, it now stopped just below her shoulders and revealed and undercut underneath. Her eyes were still gold, but while Widowmaker’s would’ve been blank, her eyes were filled with fear.

“You?!” She gripped the chair tightly with one hand while she turned, so she could make a quick exit if she needed to. “Why are you here? Why can’t you just leave me alone?!”

Reaper put his hands up and moved back slightly. He remained still otherwise, hoping the movements he made would be enough to calm Amélie, or at least stop her from sprinting off into the café and to the other two women she was with. “Relax, Amélie. I won’t hurt you. I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to talk.”

She looked at him for a moment, then glanced inside the café, before looking back at him. Her death grip on the chair loosened, and she appeared to calm slightly. However, she still kept her body turned slightly, ready to make a run for it if she had to. “Really? So why are you here?”

Reaper understood her reaction. He knew there was no hope of getting Amélie back entirely, which meant that to her, all he was was that asshole from Talon, not her friend from years ago. “I just wanted to see how you were doing, okay?”

She looked incredulous for a moment. Her golden eyes searched his red ones, clearly searching for any indication that he wasn’t being truthful, that he was only there to drag her back to Talon. Eventually, she relented, but stayed in the same position. “I’m doing fine. Why does it matter?”

 _This is it_. Reaper took a moment to decide whether he wanted to do this. He knew he could leave, never see her again and trust that the way she was happy in her life now. Even if he told her who he was, she might not believe him. Hell, a lot of Overwatch still didn’t know who he used to be, so there was no indication that she would remember.

Reaper made his decision, and took a deep breath to steady himself before he spoke. “It matters because I promised Gérard I would look after you.”.

As the words finished leaving his mouth, time seemed to stand still. Neither of them spoke, their eyes searching each other’s for any response of information. It seemed like an eternity before Amélie finally spoke, and even then, she only said one word: “Gabriel?”

He smiled, something he hadn’t done since he was back in Overwatch. “Yes. I wanted to tell you before, but I didn’t want to make the situation any worse for you than it already was. It’s one of the reasons why I decided to help Sombra get you out.”

She nodded as he spoke, but instead of settling back into her chair properly as Reaper hoped she would do, she stood up. He was expecting her to leave when she walked around to his side of the table and hugged him, whispering a tearful ‘thank you’ that he had not expected to hear. He himself felt emotion well up within him, but he held back as he focused on the fact that Talon had not destroyed her enough to stop her feeling good emotions.

When she finally let go of him, she took the chair next to him instead. She leaned back behind him and from the corner of his eye, he saw her mouth something to someone inside, smiling at the same person. Reaper turned to look to see who she was mouthing to and saw a red heard looking directly at Amélie and smiling. The same woman then started speaking to a short brown haired woman sat across from her who turned to look outside herself. _Tracer_.

When Reaper looked back at Amélie, she was blushing slightly. “Désolée, I asked them to come with me, just in case it was someone who I didn’t want to see. Not that Lena gave me a choice.” She smiled affectionately. “She’s protective, but Emily stops her from being overbearing.”

Reaper nodded. After what happened, he was worried that she would be stuck by herself, with no one willing to look past the person she was forced to be and he was more than relieved that that was not the case. He also supposed it was naïve to assume she would have come alone. In all honesty, he was glad she had managed to amend a friendship, although judging by her smile and the way she spoke regarding the two of them, ‘friendship’ probably wasn’t the right word.

“I’m happy for you. All three of you. How are the other’s treating you?”

She let out a contented sigh, before filling Reaper in, letting him know that she had managed to restore all her former friendships with relative ease. She’d even managed to get Ana to forgive her, although getting forgiveness from Fareeha took a while longer. Apparently, she caved when her mother and girlfriend pushed her, and now her and Amélie get on well.

They talked for three hour. Reaper found out that Amélie had been pardoned of every crime she committed under Talon’s influence, and even worked for Overwatch as a counsellor for people had been through similar situations to hers. She’d remained friends with Sombra, and confirmed Reaper’s suspicions that she, Lena and Emily were in a relationship.

At one point, Amélie’s girlfriends came out and, after Lena had fully recovered from the shock, joined the conversation, and while he listened their stories, Reaper couldn’t help but feel as though it was the closest thing he had to family in years.

After ensuring that the three of them got home safely, he went back to his personal mission of taking out terrorists, but not before being told by Amélie that he wasn’t to be a stranger this time round and was more than welcome to visit whenever he wanted.

Reaper thought on it, and decided that one day, he would visit again, but for now, he was content in simply knowing that he kept his promise to Gérard.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, my buds


End file.
